Laurie and Faheem Masood
Melanie Le Forestier
Elizabeth Phillips
Nandita Das
Gautam Sisodia
Ashok Mittal
Rashmi Patel
Aisha Nadeem Sharif
Anjali Dutt
Jennifer Marlowe
David Sluberski
Ambarien Alqadar
Women’s Interfaith Book Group
Prashant Chopra
it rained all day yesterday and it was overcast today but, hey, we’ll take what we can get. spring is finally here.
my uncle javed qureshi passed away yesterday in lahore. he was a lovely human being, adored by his family and the community at large. i interviewed him for “partition stories.” he will never see the film but we were able to preserve some precious moments with him. he was always so generous. may he rest in peace. his obituary in dawn news:
LAHORE: Poet, music connoisseur, patron of singers and former Punjab chief secretary Javed Qureshi died here on Sunday.
Mr Qureshi belonged to the 1962 pro-commoners batch of bureaucrats and served as secretary in different departments. He became famous for going out of the way to serve people as Sahiwal deputy commissioner and the first commissioner of Faisalabad.
He had a genuine feel for music and affection for singers and musicians whom he would continue to promote and help even after his retirement.
Mr Qureshi’s poetry was sung by many a star singer. His ghazal “Aashianay Ki Baat Kartay Ho,” was sung by Farida Khanum and Noor Jehan while Mehdi Hasan sang another famous ghazal by him “Shumar Lamhoan Ka Sadiyoon Main Ker Raha Hoon Main.” He worked with the All Pakistan Music Conference for years for the promotion of classical music.
His funeral prayers will be offered on Tuesday (April 29), at 9am at his residence 193-A1 Township, Lahore.
my friend cat’s bonfire last weekend: crisp moonlit night, spicy pakistani and indian food, great company and a fierce fire to keep filmmakers warm. photograph by dave sluberski.
Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being. (Hafiz)
i know people’s views on zoos r divided, but this is unbearably cute! thx mimi for sharing with me.
The choice between love and fear is made every moment in our hearts and minds. That is where the peace process begins. Without peace within, peace in the world is an empty wish. Like love, peace is extended. It cannot be brought from the world to the heart. It must be brought from each heart to another, and thus to all mankind. (Paul Ferrini)
happy new year to all my beautiful family, friends, and compadres in the struggle for justice and therefore peace, within ourselves and throughout the world. bring it on 2014!
it’s a small christmas tree this year. my daughter decorated it all by herself and named it “milford.” happy holidays everyone!
The second chapter of the fifth volume of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report is entitled “Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights.” It contains a long list of names in alphabetical order. The document says there will be more names to come. But this, already, is a rich and representative sample. Take any section, and it could have come from a Johannesburg phone book:
MATISO, Peace
MATISO, Sithembele
MATITI, Zandisile
MATIWANA, Hombakazi
MATIWANA, Nontombi Beauty
MATIWANA, Siphiwe Headman
MATIWANE, David Ndumiso
MATIWANE, Lungisa Welcome
MATJEE, Lawrence
The names run into hundreds. Folded into the neat letters of each name is an invisible horror. We know a little more about one of these names, Lawrence Matjee, because David Goldblatt took a photograph of him in 1985. No one in the history of photography ever captioned photographs more scrupulously than did Goldblatt:
Fifteen Year Old Lawrence Matjee After His Assault And Detention By The Security Police, Khotso House, De Villiers Street, Johannesburg, 25 October 1985
“Yes, they tortured people here,” my friend says. She points out the building. It has a façade of blue tile. This is John Vorster Square, headquarters of the security police. In the old days people went into this building and came out lessened, if they came out at all. It was an evil place. The victim, by continuing to suffer, irritates the oppressor, who would rather be already past it. We drive on in silence. Will there someday be another Truth and Reconciliation Commission? One that features names like Faisal bin Ali Gaber, Nabila Rehman, and Zubair Rehman? Maybe. But should such a day ever come, if history’s any guide, we won’t be ready to forgive those people for what we did to them.
Guernica: In the book, you reference a quote by the British gynecologist William Acton, who wrote in the Victorian era: “The majority of women, happily for society, are not very much troubled by sexual feeling of any kind.” The message there being that women’s sexuality, if unleashed, could upend civilization. Times have changed, but your book suggests that elements of that logic persist.
Daniel Bergner: If we cast back to Victorian times as they’re encapsulated in that Acton quotation, we see this really severe denial of women’s desire, and that denial is mixed in with a level of fear. That carries forward to our society. Women’s sexuality surrounds us, but right beneath that there’s this other standard for women’s desire that’s still informed by uneasiness. It’s linked, ultimately, to the comfort that we all get—men and society as a whole—from this idea that women are somehow less desiring than men. We can still lean on women a little bit to keep society stable. The dichotomy that’s set up is that men are animals and anarchic in their lust and women are civilized and civilizing in their sexuality. More here.
without ethics u cannot accomplish ur own well-being,
so wanting to accomplish others’ is laughable.
therefore without worldly aspirations
safeguard ur ethical discipline –
this is the practice of bodhisattvas.
last week i had a guy come in to service our heating system. i had never met him before. as i was leading him to the furnace, he asked me where i was from. i said: “from here.” he said: “yes, but what’s ur nationality?” i said: “american.” he sniggered and went to work. later he started telling me about how he had been in the navy and didn’t believe in “negativity” and had friends from pakistan and israel and all kinds of exotic places. he said: “do u like thai food?” after i told him i did, he said: “oh yeah, coz u must love curries.” i told him not particularly. he asked me about good indian restaurants. i still didn’t commit to any foreign nationality. as he was leaving, he told me i shouldn’t be offended by his questions. he’s not “negative” about any religion or ethnicity. he even watches the BBC. i told him to watch democracy now. also, i said: “since u keep digging, let me tell u something. ur questions r intrusive and u only asked them because i’m not white. what’s ur nationality? i’m sure u’re not native american. what r ur roots? what’s ur food? ur story? why do u feel entitled to ask me personal questions about my background when we don’t even know each other? because i’m not white?” he thought about it and agreed that i was right. he said goodbye and thanked me for teaching him a valuable lesson. he said: “next time i’ll just say hello mara and get to work.” good idea.
my husband encapsulates “breaking bad” which came to a much anticipated close tonight: a lesson in what happens when u don’t have single-payer national health insurance. word.
what a great day! lunch with a close friend at benucci’s, followed by a multi-media dance performance which was part of the fringe festival, followed by dinner at jines with my husband and daughter. didn’t get any artwork done but what a terrific finish to the week!
